Now that WB has added FAST channels (Free Ad-supported Streaming TV), what do we have to do to convince them to run a DC Heroes version of the fast channels? I have made my voice heard numerous times, but wondering if anyone else would like to see a free, live stream of shows featuring our DC heroes and if it is even possible to get them to hear us with all the changes going on.
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Iām down for that. The more outlets for DC content, the better.
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Start tweeting and contacting them any way you can. The more voices the better. I just want to put on a channel I donāt have to pick what to watch sometimes and a DC FAST channel would be perfect.
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Iām a proud member of the āTwitter can kiss my feet.ā group, soā¦could I just send WB a 3x5 card with a picture of Oliver (from the movie āOliver!ā) that says āIād like some more, please.ā?
To paraphrase Oliver himself, please sir, I donāt want to use Twitter. 
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Any contact that shows how much we want it will work, Twitter is just the easiest way for most people. Of course, with the new guy, Twitter may be gone before too longā¦
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I donāt have a twitter, but I frequently use the mostly UN-monitored customer service ācontact usā form at DC Entertainment to complain about books or toys. I imagine Warner Brothers has one as does the Consumer Products brand of WB/DISCO.
@MovieAddict I donāt think the DISCO suits will do an entirely DC only FAST site. I donāt think they will see it as beneficial. But I can see them making it a channel within a FAST site, in the same way Tubi has a KIDS, LGBT and ART HOUSE collections and GENREs. You also probably do need to promote this thread and conceptually doing this a bit more on the site since there are people here who do participate in social media. Iād definitely post this yourself on reddit, for example, which has various subs that are appropriate, like one for the DCW shows, and specific ones for each show.
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I know that WB has FAST channels on Tubi and Roku. Iām hoping they see the market to add one for DC Comics. I mean, if you are going to devote a channel to reality, surely you can devote one to DC. As for reddit, Iām not educated enough for the site, barely use it.
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That used to be this site.
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Tubi is owned by FOX, which is why there is more than one Fox branded channel, and yes - if you do go to the ārecommended channelā (which I personally never bother with because - as I just went now - itās playing elevator music while I wait, so far more than 2 minutes for it load anything - and then only to give me wall to wall Nikita (or, in other words, C-List (at least to me) and older The WB content. I also see more than one WB channel listed, but itās just variations (e.g. āWB thrillerā or āWB actionā) and these all make sense: WB (like MGM, another content provider on Tubi) has a large film library of movies, and WB is a large producer of TV shows, even when it owned The WB network and partnered on The CW. To this day, it still provides a lot of content to even competing streamers, but - for example - at the moment, they only have some old HBO comedy specials, very old ones at that, and a few random documentaries. Even old HBO shows like Sex In The City, which have been cut for broadcast standards and sold off for syndication for years now, are not popping up on at least Tubi.
For example, Gotham is still just on HBO Max; B-TAS, same thing (even thought itās been on Netflix in the past and probably was on Hulu at some point); Superboy, the syndicated series, was on Tubi for the past few years, at the moment, it can only be purchased or rented. Smallville is back on Hulu but was on daytime cable (albeit a Warnerās cable channel) forever at one point.
I donāt think Tubi pays enough to have an exclusive DC channel, but I would agree with you and hope the DISCO suits people create an entire FAST site for their DC (and other material they are pushing off HBO Max) content, which they might not, versus licensing it for sale to others - which seems to be their plans, since they already have an advertising tier for HBO Max.
I would have thought the FAST channels would be on HBO Max, but they licensed them to Tubi and Roku. I still think thereās a market, and with WB licensing Max originals to the FAST channels, I could see having the shows on the channel, even if they are still on Max. I mean, they donāt have to allow on demand for the shows on the FAST channel, so it could work.
I mean a live channel of which you donāt actually have to select the show, just tune in and watch. This site has plans for that very thing, mainly just in the discussion stage, but we all know how that went.
Definitely think the content is there to do it. I mean itās highly unlikely such a channel would feature Arrowverse or the like. But there are more than enough second tier DC shows and animated series and movies (I.E. the basically the stuff that was on here back when this was the DC Universe streaming service and not DC Universe Infinite.) So I think I would watch it.
They have? Donāt watch many fast channels so out of curiousity which shows have been licensed to them?
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They are licensing some HBO material where they donāt want to pay the residuals or other fees - a good example is West World. But thatās not all that new, they eventually have done that, a good example is Sex In The City, which even got sold to syndication. West World was expensive, which is another reason, plus had a large - and expensive - cast. The movie with Anne Hathaway, The Witches, was one of the first Max original movies - I actually enjoyed it and could see it becoming something perannual like Hocus Pocus or Nightmare Before Christmas, for HBO/HBO Max so thought it was stupid that they decided to take it off the site and license it out - but thatās what theyāve done. Minx was technically cancelled and someone else (Starz maybe or Showtime) decided to continue with it, so they are technically licensing S1, but it wasnāt really the DISCOās suits intention to license it, they just wanted to dump the costs - they have a very cheap mind set, IMHO). I canāt really think of anything else off the of my head and frankly donāt care enough to do some reasearch. You can find this kind of information fairly easily if you look it up on line.
Thanks, I actually looked it up since posting that and saw the list of some of the ones. Was not a fan of any reallyā¦ I saw the first season of Westworld but fount it more interesting when it was about them running the experience over the robots becoming self aware. So I didnāt watch must past season 1, saw the new Head of the Class the entire first season but to be honest, had no problem believing the show was not watched by many as it was not that good.
From a business standpoint licensing them out probably is a good idea. I get why subscribers who like the show are mad, especially given some of that is not availiable on DVD or any other way to purchase. But I think we need to remember these streaming services are not our own personal libraries and at the end of the day business is business and they are not going to just keep everything up forever. It sucks but it is just tv at the end of the day.
The one problem I see with a lot of the shows, such as Westworld, being on Fast channels is that unless it is like a Pulute TV situation where the shows are also availiabler on demand that is nto a great way to watch it. Most of them just marathon one show all day and something like Westworld where the episodes are not really lending themselves to watching out of order people may not have 6 hours or more to watch a specific show ons omeone elses time. I know we were dependent on TV schedules back in the āold daysā but it was once a week or once every day, people want to watch it they can work their plans around that. But if they show Westworld for 8 hours on Wednesday or even Saturday people are not going to find that a convenient way to watch it because as cliche as it is, most people have a life and canāt just sit in front of the TV for horus on end at a specific day.
Thereās a bit of confusion, I believe.
āFASTā in the industry is typically used to mean a "F"ree service, whether it is "A"d(vertising) supported or not. So Tubi is FAST as is Roku Channel. I assume Freevee works the same way as Roku and Tubi except that you have to create an account. I mean, I know you can create an account for Tubi and Roku but you donāt NEED to do so, to watch something - whereas Bezos, because Bezolandia is a hotbed of crapitude and hot garbage best set of fire in an encapsulated hermetically sealed room so it doesnāt create pollutants - requires an account for Freevee.
The SVOD services are "S"ubscription services (e.g. Netflix and Hulu).
And I know that the services offer the option to watch something, which means you have no control and have to watch say Season 5, episodes 5 through 7 if you are watching Bones tonight, between 8 and 10 pm. But you can go to Tubi or Netflix (if NF still had Bones) and watch S1, E1 of Bones and watch them in order, as well.
As far as WB goes, for example, Westworld, at the moment, you can only BUY it on Crapazon or iTunes. And I think I see where the confusion arises, Tubi (and apparently Roku) now have WB on TV as an option that is simply playing and you have no control - they seemed to have done that with Raised by Wolves.
I can see this working with crap like Cake Boss or even for a movie, if youāve missed the first 20 or so minutes of the start, maybe even the first 30-40 if itās a comedy or a romance.
I donāt buy that it will work for The Time Travelersā Wife, except for the people who just want to watch it to see James naked, versus for the plot, ditto Westworld or The Nevers - all of those require some knowledge unless itās people rewatching; the vast bulk, almost all of the rest of these channels are going to be Discovery crap where it doesnāt matter, cooking shows, paranormal shows, that will all work this way, because it will be quasi video/audio background wallpaper, but I doubt advertisers will really want to support this by and large, in the ways that the DISCO suits imagine or that TUBI/Roku or others will be willing to fork out cash for.
I canāt actually find anywhere where Zaslav is literally calling these āWBās FAST channelsā but I see that even reputable industry trade publications are referring to these as āFAST streaming channelsā - but thatās not 100% precise.
I honestly donāt know - since Iāve never watched even Roku with an account (I do have a Roku stick, but have mostly watched the Channel on my browser with a few exceptions for Olympics and as background music videos). But I suspect people interested in Raised By Wolves that didnāt want to pirate it and didnāt want to pay for HBO can do stuff with an account like actually get alerts that S1, E1-E3 will play at 8pm the next three nights, with repeats at 11pm on Friday and something something something, and that might work. And again people into Cake Wars could really care less and just want to watch baking reality TV.
Back to the point of this thread: about DC content, thereās no indication that Zaslav has licensed even the really old content to anyone or that this is a thing that will happen any realistic time soon.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean by āsoldā it. (I assume you meant licensed it, since I donāt think anyone thinks he is flat out selling any of this stuff). But Tubi has a lot of older DC content. I did a quick look and was able to within about five minutes find "DC Super Friends (the animated shorts more recent, not the Hanna Barberra show from the 70ās and 80ās), The Fleischer Superman shorts (although to be fair those are in the public domain), The 2 Batman serials, Lego DC COmics: Batman Be-Leaguered (how many of those things are there? Wow), The DC Nation Shorts, The Birds of Prey TV SHow, and The Batman Unlimited Shorts.
I remember in the past seeing the Ruby Spears Superman cartoons, the Filmation Batman cartoon, The 90ās Flash show and the Shazam 70ās series. As well as Catwoman and Steel at one point. Although they donāt seem to be on there now so maybe whatever deal they had has expired. Maybe those were made by WB before Discovery bought it, but ti does seem they are willing to license them out and they donāt seem to be interested in putting most of the odd curiousities on HBO MAX. So could see them on there.
Yep - sorry, I just fixed that. I spent too much time reading industry trades and talking to people who use the weirdest verbiage. I was volunteering at a film festival and they referred to stuff that was donated or stuff that was provided at price, or stuff that was purchased for use at the festival as āproductā - no matter was it was. So gift bags from HBO for certain participants: āproductā - Heineken provided at cost by the local distributor because the beer company was a presenting sponsor, also āproduct.ā Free tickets to give out to community groups as part of co-marketing and promotion efforts, also āproduct.ā
So, yes, it would be licensed, but I can just picture the DISCO suit people, chomping cigars, drinking and sitting around a cabana, and talking about āsellingā those āold Shazamā episodes to Tubi, when yes, it would just be a temporary license.
You are correct, they had some of the stuff you mentioned like the 90s Flash show, plus the Superboy show, and other stuff. But thatās stuff that DC Entertainment (which isnāt the right holders of all that stuff, was already licensing since before the AT&T merger and it became Warner Media for a few years). Warner Media pulled some of that stuff back, but not a lot, for HBO Max, and other stuff circulates even to Netflix still to this day (I believe the Lego stuff still floats around?).
I agree that we will continue to see on the non - āWB LIVEā, non - āchannelā parts of Tubi, meaning you could, for example, watch Batman Be-Leaguered on demand (with advertising). And thereās no reason they couldnāt do a channel of DC stuff - but at the moment, thereās no plans and other than the animation stuff or older things like Batman (ABC/Adam Ward), and Superboy and perhaps other stuff, which you can see out of order, Iām not sure it would work. Even with say Smallville and Lois & Clark, or with Gotham, it would be hard to watch that stuff out of order for an audience that has no familiarity with it at all.
Hope this helps clarify stuff, with confusing more!
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A lot to unpack in those last few comments, Iāll have to check back when I have timeā¦